And All the Stars Fell Down
by adlyb
Summary: "I think I want to try something different with you." What happens after Sylar disappears with Claire. Sylaire, Paire, and Sylelle, among other things. Sequel to "Alone in the Night" and "Broken."
1. Pandemonium

I think… I'd like to try something different with you

**And All the Stars Fell Down**

By adlyb

Disclaimer: I own nothing, except these words.

_AN: Hey. This took a while. I've just finished my other project, so I thought I'd try some more fic. This is a sequel to "Alone in the Night" and "Broken". It's going to run at least five or six chapters, and should be very fun. Enjoy. _

* * *

_I think… I'd like to try something different with you. _

At first she hopes he'll at least have the decency to kill her.

His embrace is intimate. It makes her uncomfortable. When was the last time a man had held her? West? She doesn't really remember.

What she does remember is that she is ready to die. Her mission is complete, and she is ready for it all to be over. It has to be over. Because if it isn't, she doesn't know what she'll do with herself.

So much of her life up until this point has been devoted to finding and killing Mohinder Suresh. So much of her life spent with her rage, keeping company with her anguish until the feelings were living things, burrowing into her heart like maggots, clanging against her skull, a steady, hammering beat.

Without the distraction of her revenge, so large and looming that everything else was blocked out, she begins to notice what she never felt before: the weight of taking human lives, hanging off her shoulders. She looks at her manicured hands and they look red (_the crimson seas incarnadine_). But inside, nothing.

And now that it is over, she is tired. So tired.

Sylar wraps his arms around her, and she is ready to meet the end. Her eyes meet his, and she thinks she sees understanding there. For just a moment, she thinks he'll do as she wishes.

But this is Sylar, and he very, very rarely follows anyone else's plans.

That is when she begins to feel sick. Sick, because she realizes, right before Mohinder's apartment is gone, just _gone_, that he really _does _want to try something different with her.

She doesn't like it one bit.

…………………………………………….

The transition from one location to the next is like flipping on a light switch. So fast, no one could follow it. Except, she suspects, Sylar.

She doesn't know where they are. The walls aren't blank and the room isn't bare, but it is so nondescript, so unassuming, that she doubts she'd remember it if she were to leave now.

It's the perfect hideout for a man like Sylar.

"You're much quieter than I thought you would be," he tells her as he steps back.

The way he looks at her gives her the creeps. Like there are bugs crawling under her skin.

She doesn't respond. Does her best not to shiver when he circles around her, so that he's standing behind her, as she feels him approach her, until he is so close she can feel his breath graze across her ear as he speaks. His low voice sets the hairs on the back of her neck on end.

"Now, now, Claire. I wouldn't have gone through the trouble of bringing you here if I thought you weren't going to play nice."

He is mocking her.

She snaps. Turns on her heels and jabs a finger at his chest.

"Don't fucking _toy_ with me, Sylar!"

He laughs, and it's the most horrible sound she's ever heard. Horrible, because he thinks this is _funny. _

She doesn't.

"Just do it, okay?" Her voice is tiny.

And suddenly, the laughter stops. He seems sincere when he looks at her. When his brows knit together as he studies her face.

"What exactly am I supposed to do?" he asks. He is so calm.

For just a moment she closes her eyes and she _pretends. _Pretends that this isn't what it is. That she is still sixteen years old and the world is still the way it's supposed to be. That she still has the luxury of kissing her father goodnight and going to late-night parties, even if they do occasionally end with her death. From where she is standing, it actually sounds pretty good.

And that's the problem: where she is standing. Because from where she is standing, she doesn't want to live anymore. She wants to be put down. She wants to stop, just stop, and be allowed to rest. To be at peace. Somehow, even knowing what death by Sylar's hands would mean, even knowing that she would be relinquishing her power to him, she doesn't care.

The only thing she cares for is to put an end to the hollow feeling in her chest. The sense that what she has done in the name of revenge should have bothered her more than it did. That the remorse she should have been feeling isn't there. It's this _lack _of guilt, lack of fear or any other normal reaction to death (_murder_) which frightens her so, so much. She's a monster.

She realizes that he is still waiting for an answer. An answer she is sure he already knows. An answer she's going to give him anyway.

Claire looks up into his black, black eyes and, with a steady voice and a raised chin, tells him, "Well, you're _supposed _to kill me."

…………………………………………….

"I'm _supposed _to kill you?"

"Yes."

"That's sort of arrogant, don't you think, Claire? Assuming that I even _want _your power?"

His words make her doubt herself. All these years… All these years spent hiding. First from Sylar, then from the Company, then Sylar all over again.

She remembers the dream, the dream where she is running towards Mohinder, and she's so close, _so close_, to him, the gun in her hand, ready to shoot, to rend, to tear, that when Sylar's hands close around her arms, all she feels is despair. In fact, she remembers _every _dream after that, because after that dream, there were very, very few. She remembers seeing him there, for the first time since that night in New York City, remembers realizing that she had failed. Failed because Sylar wanted her blood, and what Sylar wanted, Sylar got.

Claire's eyes narrow into slits as she glares at him (_weighing him_). He is calm. Flippant. And he is lying. She's sure of it.

The knowledge makes her blood boil.

She wants to get in his face about it. Wants to do something to unnerve him, push him over the edge (_make him kill her so he'll stop playing this sick game with her)_.Get it over with. After all, he'll get his and she'll get hers. Call it even.

Sylar is only inches away from her. Too close, crowding her. Now it's time for her to crowd him.

She gets up on her tiptoes. In her too tall heels, she's almost eye-level with him.

His eyebrows raise as she leans in close. She can see his eyes lose focus, notices the way he leans toward her, and she's _right there- _

She slaps him, hard over his sensitive ears. Takes a sucker-punch to his nose when he clamps a hand over the side of his face.

Claire gets the reaction she is hoping for.

Faster than her brain is able to process, Sylar has her against the nearest wall. One moment she is inches away from him, the next, she is ten feet away. Pinned and helpless, prepped for death. Just the way Sylar likes it (_she's seen the pictures_).

He comes at her, and she sees murder on his face.

She just laughs. Notices with satisfaction that she's drawn blood. It's all over, smeared along his mouth, his jaw, blurring the details of his face. His nose is probably broken. Victory is hers. He'll have no choice but to kill her now. Sylar was never a patient man. She can't fathom him keeping her around when an instant fix is so readily available.

"Wish you had my power now, don't you?" she taunts when he makes no further moves, just stands there, _looking _at her.

He turns away from her then, and she watches with interest as his shoulders work, as she hears the crunchy, popping noise of him resetting the bone (_a sound she knows well_).

"I already told you," he calls back over his shoulder, as he starts moving toward the door, "I don't _want _your power."

"I don't believe you!"

Her voice is shrill as she yells back at him, before he lets the invisible bands drop from around her wrists and ankles and she is slumping against the wall. Defeated.

…………………………………………….

He leaves her alone for awhile, and she doesn't know what to do with herself. She spends the first hour waiting for him to come back and kill her. The second hour she spends sulking. For the third hour, she ignores her stomach's grumbles and wills herself to die. Shuts her eyes, folds her hands over her stomach, and lies like Sleeping Beauty, hoping the prince will never wake her up.

After the third hour, she gets impatient and decides to explore.

She tugs off her shoes, tiptoes to the door, patting herself on the back for the stealthy way her clothes whisper when she moves.

Sylar isn't the only way to die. She has lots of other options.

For example, she could fall on a tree branch. Or stick a piece of glass into her skull. The memory of her dead uncle fills Claire with unpleasant longing. She wonders if she'd be here if he'd survived Kirby Plaza. If he had ever come back to her.

So she hastens over the memory, and bets that all she has to do to in order to die is destroy her brain. It had been easy enough as a teenager.

Claire peeks out the door. There's a long hallway, with padded white carpet, just outside. She checks to see if the coast is clear. Left. Right. Her captor isn't here, and she's ready to bolt for the exit just ahead. She hopes it's the front door.

She's still considering the how-to's of dying when you're indestructible when Sylar steps back into view.

Something about his posture jogs her memory. He's leaning casually against the doorframe, blocking her exit, dressed in that damn inky black coat from earlier, his white teeth sinking into a green apple with a sickening _crack_. It reminds her of a portrayal of the devil in an old movie she'd seen as a child. She'd watched it with her father, on the couch in the house that no longer exists… Tears form in her eyes, and she curses herself for her weakness.

"Feeling sentimental, Claire?" His sympathetic tone is a farce. He's mocking her again.

She hates him a little bit more for it, wants to die just a little bit faster; her revenge died with Mohinder. Without him, without the thought of that kill pushing her forward, she feels frail, frightened. She misses her father.

"Why don't you just kill me already?" she snaps at him.

He laughs at her.

"Because I don't _feel like it_."

"You don't _feel like it_? Fuck! What have I been afraid of for? What did I spend my adolescence running from you for? So you can torture me with your stupid comments? Ugh!"

He's up in her face, his eyes dark and intense.

"I don't want your power, Claire."

Her voice is very low when she speaks.

"I don't believe you."

He pulls away, just a little bit, to look at her.

"Why not? Have I ever lied to you before, Claire?"

She takes the moment to look at him, to watch him as her blood simmers beneath her skin and her fingers start itching for her gun. She _so _wants to kill him, _so _wants to do him worse than she did this morning, when she lashed out at him.

That's when she notices.

His nose.

His nose is fixed. Perfect. Unblemished.

Claire screams, and faints.

…………………………………………….

She wakes up and it's dark. She's not in the same room she was in before.

It's not a bare, asylum white room. Doesn't lend itself to picturing her blood smattering the walls poetically when Sylar kills her. It's a different kind of nightmare setting. Dark, the features of the room impossible to make out other than as black, imposing shapes.

At first, she doesn't understand where she is. Doesn't understand the sudden shift in scenery. Then her hands fumble out, and she understands from the feeling of fabric under her hands that she is on a bed.

She gulps, because it must be _his_ bed.

And then, worse, she remembers the _how _and the _why _of her newfound surroundings. The how: she passed out. The why: Sylar's nose, clearly broken a few hours ago, was miraculously healed.

Claire flails for understanding. Fights to make sense of what she'd seen. What she _did _know was that she wasn't dead, so Sylar didn't have _her _power of regeneration. That only left a few options. Was it possible… She felt sick just considering it… But was it possible that he had killed _someone else _with her power? She didn't want to imagine it. Didn't want to imagine anyone like her having to experience that kind of death, not when she was willing, not when she was deserving, to die by Sylar's hands.

The wires in her brain begin to spark, and she remembers that horrible dream from all those years ago.

"He could use my blood…" she mumbles to herself. She feels relieved, considering it. Perhaps… Perhaps, somehow, he'd injected himself with some of her blood. He'd been in Mohinder's apartment when she got there… It seems fully possible he'd simply raided Mohinder's fridge, took a sample… Even she feels like it's grasping at straws, though. It's unlikely Mohinder would have had her blood on hand like that.

Claire feels sick. Feels like retching. Needs to empty her stomach. She bolts upright, scrambles towards the edge of the bed, her stomach heaving.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't throw up on my carpet."

She ignores him.

"Aw, that's disgusting," he grumbles, and she can hear the heavy sound of his hard-soled shoes as he walks towards her. It's uncomfortable, the way he comes and sits by her, puts his hand on her back and pats it. It gives her insight into what this is.

They're two serial killers, alone in an apartment and completely unsure of each other. It's absurd. She doesn't know what exactly he wants with her, and he doesn't know exactly what to do with her. She suspects he never thought this through further than kidnapping her. Stupid man.

"You done?" he asks.

She gets up and wipes her mouth on the back of her sleeve.

"Sure."

He doesn't respond. From the way he keeps his hand on her back, though, she's beginning to get an uneasy idea of what this is. What he wants it to be.

"Way to go, Claire," she whispers, so quiet her words are almost mute, her lips barely twitching.

His eyebrows raise, and she feels that sinking feeling in her stomach again, because he shouldn't have been able to hear that.

Again she feels the need to lean over the side of the bed, empty her already drained stomach. Nothing happens, but she's comforted by the mess she's made on his floor.

He's frowning this time when she resurfaces, and she almost asks him why. Luckily for her pride, he answers her question by asking his own.

"Can you get sick?"

"You would know."

He smirks, and it confirms all of her fears.

"Yeah, I would."

Claire feels satisfied, though, because he obviously doesn't. She braves another look at his nose, and regrets the action. Almost wants to break it again, just to see if it will heal. But part of her, the part that only seems to have reappeared after Mohinder's death, is afraid to confirm her suspicions.

"What are you thinking, Claire?" he asks her.

She doesn't answer in the conventional way. That would be too easy. Claire wants it rough, and Claire wants it hard, and she wants, _wants _him to lash out at her, because she's still holding out hope. So she snaps her hand out- his hands are around her wrist just as she gets there, collapsing the delicate bones in her wrist- wraps her sharp little fingers around his nose and _yanks_.

He hollers as she feels the grinding crunch of bone as it crumbles under her hands. He lets go of her wrist and cups his nose. He glares at her, for just a second, before cradling the broken bones and working to set them right.

But Claire has a better idea of what she is doing. She's already standing up, her bones already set, sliding smoothly into place, her shiny silver gun, miraculously still strapped to her hip, already drawn and aimed, by the time he takes his hands away to remove the smooth, clean lines of his unbroken nose.

Sylar isn't expecting the gun. Probably forgot all about it. Stupid thing to do, considering she's a trained assassin.

"Put the gun down, Claire."

She remembers when he killed Eden; she found the files, of course. Bawled her eyes out over that one. She was the first of her friends to disappear. Always nice to her. Power of persuasion, apparently. And Sylar never got his hands on it.

Claire flexes her fingers, shifts the angle of the gun, cocks the trigger. If she twitches her finger, just a hair, her trusty silver handgun, her father's gun, will fire. Then the game will end.

"Claire, put the gun down."

He's getting up, now. His hands are raised in a placating gesture, and he's edging towards her.

She takes a corresponding step back, towards the faint outline of a door. Wonders briefly why he doesn't just use his telekinesis. Maybe he doubts his ability to stop her from shooting the moment she feels those iron straps. She's certain she'd recognize it by now, have time to pull the trigger before he could touch her. Maybe he knows that too.

"Claire-"

"I get it."

"Get what, Claire?"

He's nervous; she can tell.

"Why you don't want to kill me. Why you don't _need _to kill me. Already killed someone else, huh? I guess that would make killing the cheerleader kind of pointless."

"Yeah. I guess it would." He pauses. "How'd you figure it out?"

She's on to him. Her father trained her to always suspect everyone. To trust no one, not even him. Sylar's just trying to keep her talking, trying to distract her. Looking for an opening, looking for a way to take that gun, pointed directly at her temple, away from her trembling hands.

She ignores his question. Asks her own.

"So, if you don't need me for my power, why did you take me? Why do you _care _if I blow my brains out? End it all?"

He looks at her.

"You'll just regenerate."

This time, it's _her _turn to laugh at _him_.

From the way he's coming at her, she knows she has to get out soon, or he'll be upon her. She knows there's no way she'd win a hand-to-hand confrontation. She has to get out, or she has to shoot, and there are no other options.

She shouldn't have laughed. It tips him off. Tells him that he's wrong. Gives him greater incentive to catch her.

Desperately, Claire tries to distract him.

"Yeah, you're probably right. But you don't care either way, do you? You're no longer interested in my power."

"Is that what this is about? This makes you feel like you're not as special? It shouldn't."

His words are too _nice_. It's just proof. Proof that she's fallen into some tear in reality, some crazy, alternate dimension where Sylar tries to boost her self-esteem.

She's at the doorway, now. At the door, and she's either going to escape and find some tasteful way to die, some graceful, Ophelia-style suicide, or she's going to go old-fashioned, and let her brains explode onto this intimate stranger's walls.

At the same time, she still wants to _know_.

"Then I want you to answer my question, Sylar. If you don't want my power, then why do you care that I have this gun pressed to my head? _Hmmm?_

He is slow to answer. Carefully choosing his words, she thinks.

"Because I have a different plan for you."

"I do, too. Wanna see me execute it?"

He lunges, and her decision is made. At this range, there won't be any digging the bullet out of her brain, no clean save. The mess will splatter, and there won't be any putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

…………………………………………….

He wins. Redirects the path of the gun into a wall, and she's not sure whether it's his telekinesis or him that keeps her down as he takes her gun from her.

It's a profound moment. As devastated as she is by the outcome, she understands that. The gun, the symbol of her revenge, the physical link between her and her father, is severed.

She crumples, and he catches her.

And he's holding her, whispering things in her ear she doesn't understand. All she knows is that she's stuck, stuck with everything she's done the last eight years, and that there will be no escape.

Peter would be so ashamed of her. The errant thought flits across her mind, and for once, she doesn't try to suppress it. God, she misses Peter. Misses feeling like she's not alone, like she's not a freak. Peter was the first person who understood. She blushes, even now, eight years later, because she still recalls the way he would make her heart race, the way she felt about him. Blushes, because, no matter how innocent her feelings for him were, they were wrong. Twisted. Corrupt. Incestuous.

And it was Sylar who brought them together.

She pulls back. She wants to look at him.

He let's her.

His eyes are black and his face is stubbly, and he's evil incarnate. Her match, she thinks. The hell she deserves.

It's when he's holding her that it happens. This… incredible urge to kiss him. To touch his face, his arms. Get under his skin and hold him tight.

He looks at her and smirks, and she knows that she'll stay awake tonight, trying to decipher this moment. But for now she does not think. She doesn't need to. She just responds.

Sylar's lips are upon hers, hard and fast and impossibly hot. Live flames lick up her arms as he runs possessive fingers over her skin. His touch burns her (_and she would know- she's the girl who can walk through fire_).

His arms are still her prison. She is still trapped.

But now it does not seem so bad. Under the tight pressure of his mouth, the graze of his sharp white teeth, she considers her cowardice, her desire to escape the sudden rush of guilt and remorse and hopeless loneliness her decisions have left her with. Under the weight of his coal black eyes, she wonders if this is hell.

Wonders if this terrible fire she feels burning through her veins will purge her soul.


	2. Deadly

And All the Stars Fell Down

**And All the Stars Fell Down**

By adlyb

_A/N: Enjoy. _

* * *

_I think… I'd like to try something different with you._

He'd told her that much. Hadn't told her much else. Had been too amused by her false assumption that he had brought her here, to this bland New Jersey apartment, to kill her. His amusement was probably the reason he didn't realize that it wasn't _fear _that caused her to question his motives. It was _impatience_. She _wanted _to die.

That was where they disagreed.

Sylar hadn't expected her to break his nose, either. Fisting his ear was just a dirty trick. If he hadn't picked her power up from that blond in Japan, he _might _have lost his temper with her. Might have.

He'd turned around, then, fixed his nose; he hadn't wanted Claire to know he didn't need her power yet. He'd been having too much fun. He was still mad about his nose, though. So he walked out. Locked all the doors _very _carefully behind him (_as if that would make any difference_) and walked down towards the open market.

The clearest impression he'd gleaned from his encounter with Claire told him that he needed to rethink her. Needed to come up with a new way of dealing with her. Being snide with her wasn't going to work for very long. She was too aggressive, too willing to take direct action in order to get what she wanted. Provoking him had been nuts. Clearly, the girl had gone insane.

At the market, he walked around, fingering items he saw on the tables. A mirror told him he was dark. A hand-carved comb reminded him that he'd need to provide Claire with some basics if he was going to keep her. An apple suggested the idea of forbidden fruit.

He bought the apple.

…………………………………….

With his improved hearing, he could tell from blocks away that Claire was on the move. Decided to pop by, see what she was up to- literally.

She'd been on him again about whether or not he was going to kill him when she just up and fainted.

Sighing, he'd scooped her up and brought her into his room. Nicer to put her on the bed than leave her on the floor, right? He'd spent just a moment brushing her golden hair- shorter and straighter than he preferred- out of her face, before he decided he better leave her alone. Best to start off doing her favors.

Of course, when she woke up, she threw up all over his carpet.

He couldn't resist coming over, placing his hands on her back. Lived to regret it, though; when she finished retching, she came back up and broke his nose again. He was still screaming about it when he heard the _click-click_ of her gun cocking.

Very, very slowly, he raised his head to see where she was pointing the thing. Felt horror sweep through his veins, slow and thick and icy cold, when he realized she was pointing it at herself. He knew what she was doing. Knew she must be on to him. Understood that she was going to make a trade: her life for her freedom.

…………………………………….

Obviously, he can't allow _that_.

At first, he tries to talk her down. That really doesn't work. His Claire is too far gone to change her mind about any of this. She's really looking for death, and it's hard for him to get his mind wrapped around it. It makes no sense from a biological perspective. Just one more reason she needs him to fix her.

By the time he has the situation calmed down, has Claire locked in his arms, that deadly silver gun (_a gun he recognizes as the same one Noah Bennett used against him eight years ago_) thrown out of the way, he has the urge to try something. Has the urge to do something he had thought would be unnecessary.

Closing his eyes, he filters through all the powers he's stolen over the last decade, until he finds the one he wants- the one he picked up in Africa. His favorite: pheromone manipulation.

Suddenly, he's not holding Claire; she's holding him. Quickly, he amends the statement- she's _clutching _him, squeezing so tight he would worry for breath if he needed it.

This is his chance to make his move, to kiss her the way he's wanted to ever since the first time she stole his quarry from him. He kisses her aggressively, enthusiastically.

She shutters in his arms, and he can't be sure if it's a reaction to his caresses or from something else.

He moves from Claire's hot mouth down to her jaw, biting at the juncture between her neck and ear. Grins widely against her skin when she yelps.

He pulls back, and is fascinated by the way the swirling bruises he's placed on her skin waver, before disappearing altogether. He's shared this power with her for a few years now, but he's still not tired of watching the magic show.

Sylar's concentration drops, and the pheromones he's been oozing her way for the last six minutes cut off.

Suddenly she's pulling away. Swatting at his arms and wriggling towards that stupid handgun. Vaguely, he wonders if she has some sort of sixth-sense attachment to it, because she can't possibly know where he flung it. Except that her wriggling is grinding her against his hips, and it's getting harder to concentrate.

Roughly, he pulls her flush against him, his large hands encircling her thin arms, hard enough to bruise. Wonders briefly if she likes it like that- painful. He bets she does.

"Stop."

It's the first thing she's said.

He ignores her, brings his mouth back down to her collar bone to nip at the flesh exposed by her low-cut buttoned blouse.

"Stop."

She's louder this time. More vocal.

He growls against her, getting annoyed.

This time, instead of telling him to stop, she fists her hand in his hair. He doesn't recognize it for what it is at first. Believes she's just responding to him- Maya used to grab his hair, sink her fingers into his scalp, when he was doing something right.

But instead of groaning in pleasure (_what he is hoping to accomplish_), she yanks his head back, sharp and fast. Forces him to make eye contact with her.

Sitting in his lap, she's looking down on him. Looking back at her puts him in the submissive position.

Claire puts her hands on his face, and the gesture is almost tender. She is calm, quiet. Like she's talking to a child.

"I said, stop."

"I heard."

She bows her head, and for a second, he wishes he'd learned mind reading, because he'd really like to know what's going through her head right now.

"Do you know what happened to the last guy who didn't stop when I told him to?" she asks him.

He laughs, because she's showing her temper again.

"What? Did you tell Daddy? Get him to take care of it for you?" he sneers at her.

Claire looks up again, and her eyes spark like fire. With that look on her face, she is more frightening than in any agonized portrait he's ever painted of her.

"No. I crashed his car into a brick wall. With him in it."

The look on that too pretty, too young face stirs his blood again, and he can't help but shift her closer, run a steady hand over her shoulders and begin shoving the clothing- the jacket, the blouse, the flimsy bra- away.

At first, she is compliant. She lets him strip her, lets him get her down to just her too white skin (_skin that is so white he hardly matches it with the plump, sunned cheerleader he tried to kill all those years ago_).

He lets her go and crawls backward, so he can admire her better.

Claire stands up.

He mirrors the movement, and now he's taller than her again.

She crosses her arms over her white breasts. Demurely hides herself from view. She doesn't make eye contact with him when he steps closer, wraps his arms about her, so he can feel her body heat.

"Why me?" she whispers, and she is crying.

He tilts her chin up with two fingers.

"Because you're special, Claire."

Raspy, nervous laughter filters through her teeth.

"That's what they always say."

Her answer frustrates him. Like she's not really listening to what he's saying. He hates that feeling, thought he'd shaken it off when he shook off Gabriel, when he donned Sylar's mask.

He grabs her arms, tries to bruise them, to leave a mark on her that will stay. He's sick of this attitude, sick of the way nothing seems to touch her. Just once, he'd like to be able to leave some permanent mark on her (_even if she can't do that to him, either, now_).

"Claire… I've met a lot of people. A lot of special people. I've killed and I've taken more lives and more powers… I always wanted more, and more than anything, I wanted _your _power… (_and if I hadn't killed that waitress down in Texas, I wouldn't have remembered the exact pitch of your scream, the fascinating way your bones reformed after I threw you against the wall). _You were always the ultimate prize, Claire. Always the one thing I couldn't have." He snickers, because now it's no longer true. "I want you, Claire."

"Why? Aren't there other _special _girls?"

"Not like you. You're dark, and you're beautiful, and _you know me_."

"Unfortunately."

"No- Claire. Look- think about it- our lives have been intertwined for years. This is _fate_, Claire."

"I don't believe in fate."

He grimaces at her, because he remembers her stubborn streak, remembers, a little bit unpleasantly, overhearing (_he hears _everything) her conversation with Peter and Nathan, that night in New York. Of course she doesn't believe in fate. She's the girl who makes her own luck. Or, better yet, who doesn't _need _luck. She has instantaneous cellular regeneration instead.

Claire sighs, high and feminine. Turns around and steps through the doorway into the hallway, flipping on a light-switch.

He watches the swish of her naked hips as she leaves him (_dismissing him_). He hates that, too. Doesn't want to let her get away with it, either.

…………………………………….

In the time it takes him to decide to catch up to her, she's already wandered into the bare-bones living room. Already sat down on the couch in front of the windows. Still covering herself, he notices. The scene reminds him of an old painting he saw in a museum once, from the thirties, he thinks.

"Does it bother you?" she asks him.

The sound of her voice startles him, and he's not sure whether it's because she's addressed him first or because she's spoken at all. He tries to understand the context of her question, but fails. He adds it to the growing list of things which frustrate him about her.

"What?"

"The killing. The deaths." She waves her hand casually. "Does it bother you? Ever?"

He considers the question carefully before he answers no.

She finally turns to look at him, and he's not sure whether to love or loathe that face.

"Hmm. I used to feel like that, too."

"But not anymore?"

She ignores his question, asks him another. By now, it's getting to be a familiar pattern.

"Do you believe in hell?"

This time, he snorts.

"I'm a Catholic, Claire."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Why do you ask? Think that's where you're headed? Seems like a foolish worry for girl who can't die."

The real crying jag starts then, and he wonders what he's gotten himself in for. Is sure that she wasn't like this earlier today. Perhaps she wasn't worth all this trouble after all.

Sylar creeps closer to her, until he is sitting in front of her. Even he feels dirty, standing in front of her fully clothed when she is bare. He tucks a wisp of golden hair behind her ear and watches the play of emotions behind those dark blues eyes.

Finally, she straightens her shoulders, scrubs the tears from her face and looks him in the eyes.

"You know, you could still kill me. I'd find out then."

He groans, because he thought they'd finished this.

"But we've gone over this already. I'm not interested in your power anymore."

She glares at him when he says it.

"Right. Because you already _have _my power," she spits. "How, by the way, did you get _that_?"

He smirks at her.

"Killed a man in Japan. Buried alive inside a coffin."

She shudders, violently.

He suspects he knows what she's thinking: _that's _how you punish someone who's not afraid to die.

"What did he look like?" she asks him numbly.

The question surprises him. He chalks it up to morbid curiosity.

"Tall, blond, English. No idea how he ended up in Japan," he laughs.

Her face scrunches up, and she makes this pathetic little sound.

"That must've been Adam Monroe," she tells him.

The name doesn't ring any bells.

She continues.

"I used to dream about him. After Peter…" She looks up at him, and there's an accusation in her voice. "I wanted him, and you killed him. You killed him because he was like me."

When she confesses her thoughts concerning this Adam Monroe, hints at her feelings for Peter Petrelli, old, familiar feelings stir within him. It warms his heart to think that he had killed the man before he ever got the chance to meet his Claire. The memory of her uncle, the only one besides the girl sitting in front of him he had ever failed to kill, makes him giddy. Makes him insensibly jealous. He has to remind himself that Claire is _his_ now. For better or for worse.

"Yes," he agrees. "I killed him because he was like _you_. It was much easier than trying to track _you _down again." He glances at her, at the bold way she leans towards him, staring at him. "I tried finding you again, after I'd regained my powers- I'd been injected by the Shanti virus, and had used a sample of your blood to cure myself. But you were gone. Your house in Texas was… gone."

This time it's her turn to smirk.

"There was a nuclear explosion."

He raises an eyebrow.

"Ted… got angry. You remember Ted. You killed him, remember? Right before Kirby Plaza?" She's trying to offend him, looking for a vulnerability she's not going to find.

He doesn't take the bait, instead continues his story.

"Well, you were _untraceable_. I hadn't seen you since the… incident in New York. And, of course, I'd been out of the game for a while after that. I probably wouldn't have ever started looking for you again if I hadn't killed that dreamwalker and stumbled on your little revenge scheme."

She gasps.

He can tell she remembers that dream, too.

"You were really there?"

He smiles nastily at her.

"Present."

"Figures. It fucking figures. I can't ever get rid of you, can I?"

He thinks that one over.

"You can try… And you might succeed for a little while. But I'll always find you, Claire. Always."

Sylar doesn't expect Claire to lean forward, doesn't expect Claire to reach out, graze the ends of his dark hair with her fingertips, to glide a hand over his jaw before leaning in to kiss him.

This kiss is different from their first. It's gentle, really, smooth and slow and something Sylar thinks he could grow to like.

She pulls back too soon, and he's left staring into those wide now-blue-now-green eyes.

"Where do I go from here?" she whispers to him.

"Where do you want to go? I could probably bring you…" He's joking and he's serious. It's her decision.

"I just… feel… like I've lost my purpose. Mohinder's dead. I've killed off most of the Company's special agents. I've been so… focused. Relentless. And now… Now, without my _revenge_ powering me forward, I just don't know what to do. I don't have anything else left."

The girl is opening up to him, and somehow, he didn't expect it. Doesn't know what to do with it, because he never really thought this through.

Sylar looks at Claire, and he sees what he's seen for years. The broken pieces, waiting for him to put back together again. She's like a broken watch to him, still ticking, but wrong. Imprecise. He feels like tinkering with her, sticking his hands inside of her, until she runs on time. After all, he promised her he'd fix her.

…………………………………….

There is no way to answer her with words. All he has now are actions. That is the only language he knows, the only language that could possibly mean anything anymore.

So he leans in, kisses her again. Hopes this will mean something to her.

Underneath his challenging lips, her mouth begins to move. They're soft and buttery. Hesitant. He spends a moment trying to pin the flavor, but is ultimately unsuccessful. It's something new, something he hasn't encountered before. He files it away for future study.

Claire leans into him, sighs into his mouth.

He senses the same hesitation as earlier when her fingers reach out to tangle in the hair behind his ears.

That's it. All he needs- this one, small signal that she wants him. All the hint he needs to take the lead.

Sylar slides his hands down to her waist, where he roughly lifts her up, carries her back towards his dark bedroom. Drops her down on his bed, spread out beneath him.

There's a muffled grouse when she hits the bed. Quiet. She probably didn't intend for him to hear her.

Slowly, so as not to startle her (_she's wild-eyed, like an animal_), he climbs onto the bed, positions himself over her. Kisses her again, gently, before sitting back and stripping off his shirt. He doesn't ask her to take the lead, because he's not sure she will. It's enough that she's complacent beneath him.

He searches until he's found her still white hands on the bed sheets, above her head. Carefully takes them in his own and guides them down to his chest, down to the hem of his trousers. He rubs against her, and she doesn't move away. Just lies there, letting him take over. Part of him wonders if she's going into shock, but when he tries to examine her face for any signs of the aforementioned, he feels lust crowd his senses.

"Claire?" he whispers.

It takes her longer than normal to respond.

"Yes?" Her voice is uncertain.

"Do you want me?" It's important, somehow, to know that she wants him. Deep down, he knows it would hurt too much if she didn't.

For a moment, she just lies there, still. Unresponsive. Then-

"Why not?" she shrugs.

The diffident way she says it stings. But he shakes it off, because she's given him consent.

Claire is white and beautiful beneath him. Compliant and so, so soft.

He squeezes closer to her, tries to cover her completely. Hopes to asphyxiate her, to let her drown in him. Keep her as his own.

Somewhere along the line he loses his pants, and then his boxers, and then he is completely naked, poised over her, and she is beneath him, beautiful and blonde and all things holy…

When he slides into her, he realizes she's a virgin. Really looks at her again. His religion has taught him to see virgins in a very certain light, and he's beginning to wonder if he's taking something from her in this. Has to think he's defiling her.

But then Claire moans and twists, and it's the first real response he's gotten out of her this whole time, and he can't resist temptation. He has to keep going. Has to keep doing this. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Sylar thinks it's the first pure thing he's ever done.

It's over then, sooner than he would have liked.

…………………………………….

Afterwards, she is very, very still, and she doesn't speak to him.

So he pulls away from her, lets her have her own part of the mattress and lets her wraps the sheets around herself like a cocoon before he does anything.

Tentatively, he reaches a hand out, ghosts it along the line of her shoulder. Her skin is warm, burning, now, and he wants to hold her tight against his chest, let it seep into his own suddenly chilly skin.

She doesn't respond to his touch, doesn't respond when he scoots closer to her.

"Claire?" Her name is silence on his lips.

She says nothing.

This time, instead of waiting for a response, he shifts over so he can look her in the face. What he sees there is a little girl, too lost to find her way home. It reminds him of the way she looked when they first met.

He reaches a hand out, cups her face, makes her look at him.

"Claire, answer me a question."

She makes eye contact, and he interprets it as consent.

"Why did you do this with me?"

She laughs, and it's an awful, brittle sound.

"Because it was easy."

Sloth. The final sin.

Fixing her is going to be harder than he thought.

* * *

_A/N: All seven sins are referenced. See if you can spot them all? _


	3. Confession

**And All the Stars Fell Down**

By adlyb

To say that Elle hated Claire Bennett would be silly. Ridiculous. In comparison to the level of malice she bore her, hatred was simply too weak a word. Meaningless.

What she feels for Claire Bennett lives deeper than that, bubbles in the very marrow of her bones. She's not kidding. She knows what bone marrow looks like. It's disgusting and entrancingly beautiful, all at once. Like her, she guesses.

She didn't always hate her. That came later. At first, Claire was just a job. Daddy wanted her blood, and what Daddy wanted Daddy got. So he kidnapped the girl, and in return, _Claire's _daddy kidnapped her. The water bucket was a nasty trick.

Bennett tried to get in her head, of course. He succeeded, too. It took her a while to remember that, as an agent, he had to be a master of deceit. Of course her daddy wouldn't have her tortured.

Then Daddy saved her, of course. _They _got away fine. Bennett wasn't so lucky. Mohinder shot him- _dead_. _POW!_

She was given surveillance duty. Watch out for little Claire Bennett, make sure she didn't do anything stupid, didn't do anything to jeopardize their plans.

Claire shouldn't have been able to catch her. If her arm wasn't broken, or if she hadn't been so distractingly thirsty, Claire wouldn't have gotten away with trashing her car. Elle _definitely _wasn't afraid of her or anything.

Elle never saw her again. She was a little bit glad when she was reassigned. Not because she was intimidated. She was just tired of her and her petty family drama.

Going after Sylar was rash. She gets it. All she did was stir the pot and put herself in senseless danger.

Failure doesn't mean she's ready to give up, of course.

Her father tells her she has no business doing any tracking. She couldn't even find Peter Petrelli, and he was just a kicked puppy compared to Sylar.

"Sylar's a bad dog, Elle. You'll get bitten."

She hates the mention of Peter's name.

The kiss is still there, lingering in the back of her mind. But that's not what she remembers best. What Elle remembers best is the sizzling smell of his skin when she shocked him, the lightheaded feeling she got as she watched his burns smooth over into clean, white skin. Petrelli skin. She got off on it, and she is willing to bet that he did to. She could see that, in his dark, soft eyes.

For Elle, those months spent with Peter were intimate. In her mind, they were lovers.

She'd only ever been with one man in the traditional sense— it didn't take much to seduce Adam after thirty years of solitude. She could relate to that. Hadn't she suffered the same fate?

Of course, he turned on her the morning after, when he realized she wasn't going to spring him.

She should've known Peter only wanted the same thing.

What hurt about that kiss was that she had wanted it. She had wanted Peter to look at her with love. Wanted it so much that perhaps she was willing to see something that wasn't there.

Her father had found her, out cold on the floor. Told her Peter had escaped and taken Adam with him.

Elle went all the way to Ireland looking for him. Coming home empty-handed sucked.

That was why she had to catch Sylar. Sylar, the ultimate bad guy, the villain not even the Company could keep locked up. If she could catch him, it would be a lot like catching Peter.

…………………………………………………

"Absolutely not."

Her father's tone leaves no room for argument. Not even her most practiced pleas will work on him.

"Daddy, you don't understand. I'm _going _to find him." She turns, starts heading for the door.

"Elle!"

She looks over her shoulder.

"Elle, if you walk out that door, so help me, you're not coming back."

For a moment, she pauses. Considers the flash of dark hair and eyes she saw before Sylar slipped out the back door. If she blurred the image a little bit, he could almost be Peter.

"Fine." She's about to go when she adds, "I love you, Daddy."

And then she is out the door, ready to find Suresh.

…………………………………………………

Suresh is still in his apartment when she gets there. Cleaning up the mess Sylar left, quieting a frightened Molly and a jabbering foreigner. Elle doesn't speak Spanish, but she doesn't have to speak the language to know what she's saying. She's still in shock from earlier. One more good reason to catch Sylar.

She clears her throat.

Suresh looks up.

"Oh… Uh… Elle, was it?"

"Yeah. That's right."

"Uh…"

She takes the initiative and walks in, points a thumb in the woman's direction.

"She okay?"

Suresh looks at her.

"I really think not."

"Oh. Well," she slaps her hands together, "We ready to start a hunting party?"

"Hunting party?" Molly's voice is high and tremulous.

Absently, Suresh reaches out to stroke her hair before reassuring her that no, they wouldn't be doing any hunting.

Elle laughs.

"Sure. _That's _the helpful thing to do. Hate to break it to you, but he could come back here any time. He kind of hates you in a personal way, Suresh."

His eyes narrow.

"And I him."

"Oh? You're not doing anything about it…"

"Listen— that— that _thing_ killed my father!"

"And my Alejandro!"

It's the first time the foreign woman's said anything since she found out her brother was dust.

"Yeah! That's the spirit! Let's find this guy!"

Suresh sighs.

"Elle, as much as I would like to do that, I have responsibilities. I can't just pick up and leave."

"Mohinder?" It's Molly again, voice frail and piping. "I could go with you."

He looks at her.

"Molly…"

"He killed my parents, too."

Elle just smiles. Perfect.

…………………………………………………

They follow him down to Texas.

"Why Odessa?" Suresh asks as they buy plane tickets, hoping to beat him there. "I mean, why not start a little closer to home?"

Elle glances sideways at him. Decides that if this partnership is going to work, she needs to share.

"He's going after Claire."

"Claire _Bennett_?"

"Who's Claire?" Maya asks.

They both look at her.

"A very special girl."

"A complete bitch."

Suresh and Elle both speak at once, and Maya's face crumples into confusion.

"Sorry?"

…………………………………………………

Suresh asks Molly to find his roommate— some guy named Matt. Finds out that he, too, is in Texas. They make plans to hand Molly over to him. What the three of them plan to do is too dangerous for a little girl.

Matt agrees, arranges a rendezvous in the Atlanta airport, halfway between them. Plans to take Molly away for a while, out of Sylar's grasp.

Secretly, Elle is glad she will be safe. She sees a little of herself in the stubborn tilt to the child's chin. Wouldn't be too upset if she got killed, just preferred that she didn't.

…………………………………………………

Texas is a dead end.

"What next?" Maya asks in her heavy, passionate accent.

Mohinder—he's insisted that she start calling him that— scrubs his hands through his hair before he looks at her. Elle cannot be sure, be she senses there is something more between them (_something lurking just under the surface)_.

"I really don't know, Maya. I really just don't know."

"You don't _know_? He killed Alejandro, Mohinder! He killed my _brother!_" Maya's eyes bleed black.

Dark spots bloom across Elle's vision, and she wonders if she might be dying. This is the first time she's experienced Maya's power. Even after all the descriptions Maya's given her over the last few hours, this isn't what she expected.

To be honest, she's kind of impressed.

"_Maya_!" he gasps. "_Maya_, you _must_ get control of yourself!" He falls to his knees.

Elle takes control of the situation. Bites through her lips, "Maya, if you kill us, you'll never catch him. You can't do this without us." She fists her stomach, wills her lungs not to collapse. "You can't do this on your own."

Her vision blacks out. Just before she hits the ground, Elle hears Maya's low voice.

"I know."

…………………………………………………

Elle shakes her head when she comes to.

"Some power."

Mohinder snorts.

"In this case, the carrier may be better off without it."

"No, I don't think that's true."

"Oh?"

"You could say the same thing about me." She lets lightning dance from her fingers. "But would I want it gone?"

Mohinder looks at her for a long moment, then back at Maya.

"The difference, Elle, is that Maya isn't psychotic."

…………………………………………………

They give Molly a call. Decide that that's the best way to handle the search. In the mean time, Sylar leads them on a cross-country chase that always ends in another mutilated corpse. Elle revels in it.

She goes to sleep at night and dreams of warm brown eyes. It's been almost a year since she's seen Peter. The hurt of his betrayal is still there, but it's been so long she's able to remember other things about him, too. The way his hair felt, the way he smelled. His voice, low and quiet and gentle. She's never known much about gentility.

When Mohinder talks to Molly, when he comforts Maya late at night when she's crying over Alejandro, she sees that same gentleness she saw in Peter. She sees the same liquid brown eyes and the same soft, dark hair.

In her heart of hearts, she hopes that this partnership may lead to something more. Hopes that maybe Mohinder will be able to trust her in a way Peter never did. It all hinges on catching Sylar.

…………………………………………………

They're back in New York, collecting some data from Mohinder's apartment. Mohinder is convinced he'll be able to triangulate Sylar's position, based upon the locations of the known specials, who he's already killed and where they lived… There are so many variables Elle doesn't think it should be possible, but Mohinder is confident.

The room is lit yellow and the doors are shut tight against the winter wind. Maya takes the bed Mohinder offers her. Always the gentleman.

Only after Mohinder falls asleep at his desk does Elle allow herself to curl up at his feet, near enough to feel his warmth seep through her skin but for enough away to still play dumb about it in the morning.

She goes to sleep and dreams of warm hands on her skin. Her eyes are closed, even in her dreams, so she does not know to whom they belong, only that they are gentle and caressing. It is when these hands pause, over her collar bone, that she first feels it. Someone is watching her.

Elle's eyes snap open. She is lying in a ball on the floor. The soft, congested breathing she hears tells her that Maya is still asleep, Mohinder still dozing. She closes her eyes and tries to go back to sleep. The eyes are still there.

She doesn't get much sleep after that, and she never finds anything to suggest the existence of those eyes. Mohinder and Maya never say anything, either, but she knows they have noticed it too, now. The dark rings under their eyes are all the evidence she needs.

At first, she worries that the Company is watching her. She remembers her father and she is afraid that he has grown impatient with her project, that he'll send someone after her. As powerful as she is, she's still grounded enough to know that there are villains crazy enough and endowed enough to slaughter her. She's seen Level 5.

…………………………………………………

The eyes have been watching them for a few weeks the first time Mohinder brings it up with her.

"How long has it been since you've slept, Elle?"

She's surprised he's caught her off-guard. He was supposed to be on the phone with Molly still.

"You know _exactly _how long it's been."

He pauses. Looks around. Part of her thinks he's checking to be sure Maya isn't around. She's a little bit smug because this is a private conversation and Mohinder's chosen to confide in _her_.

"Who do you think it is?"

"I don't know."

"The Company?"

"I don't know."

"Why do they care?"

"Why do they ever care? It could be anything—they could be after Sylar, or maybe they want you back, or maybe my daddy's just upset with me. Who knows?"

"I think we should keep this quiet for a while. I don't want to upset Maya."

"Of course. Why would you want to do that?"

…………………………………………………

"Maya, Elle," Mohinder calls.

She goes over to him. Revels in the opportunity to press up behind him.

"Yes?"

"I think I've got him." His voice is low and husky and he's breathing quickly. Elle remembers that breath, hot and pressing, and for a moment she sees Adam's impossibly blue eyes above her, beneath her, and she has to blink to clear the image. "See? This is where he was last month." He points to a red dot on a map. "And this is where Molly says he is now." He points to another mark, a little bit north. "And this is where Samuel Nichols lives."

The name is familiar, but Elle shrugs it off.

"And what's so special about him?"

"Oh. He can fly."

"They all do."

…………………………………………………

Everything hinges on today. They are sure they've caught him this time.

They're outside of a dark warehouse. Elle is poised, ready to break down the door in just a minute and ambush Sylar. Mohinder lingers behind her, standing protectively in front of Maya. Who cares if she's the most lethal one here?

They've already gone over what they might find. The hope is that they'll catch him before he kills his target; if that happens, they'll catch the bastard and save a life in the progress. Equally satisfactory would be if they caught him in the middle. At least then he would be caught. The worst case scenario, they believe, is that they will be too late. Even then, that wouldn't be too bad. No different from every other day.

What they don't expect is the man lying artistically in a pool of his own blood, a neat bullet wound in his skull.

Elle stumbles to a stop. Mohinder is close behind her, Maya shadowing him.

Cautiously, Elle steps up next to the man. The neat little hole in this his skull isn't the grinning slash she was expecting. There's something off about it.

"Strange," Mohinder murmurs.

"You see it too?"

"Yes." He ducks down to get a better look. "This isn't his usual style."

Elle looks down at the body, studies his face.

"Perhaps it's even possible we've stumbled upon an unrelated murder," he continues.

"You mean this wasn't Gabriel?" It's the first time Maya's spoken.

"No, I don't believe it was. If it were Sylar, he would have attempted to take his power. In fact, there's nothing to suggest that this man was even a special individual—"

"He was an agent."

Mohinder looks up at her.

"An agent? Are you sure?"

"Yes. I knew him."

"Elle…" He stands up and puts his hand on her arm, warm and tender and for a moment she closes her eyes, breathes in his scent, memorizes this moment.

But it can't last forever. She must be Elle, the strong one. The psycho.

"I'm fine."

"If Gabriel did not murder him, who did? Did he not have a power?" Maya asks as she peaks out from behind Mohinder's protective shoulder.

"Yeah. He did. Don't think Sylar will be getting it now."

…………………………………………………

The body isn't the last they find like that. Sprinkled on a trail of ice cream sweet blood, their deaths always seem random. Always, the body belongs to some dead agent.

Sylar remains elusive.

Sometimes they find another victim, head split open like a banana.

Months pass.

In the old days, these images would make Maya scream. Apparently, she had had some sort of fling with _Gabriel_. Now she just accepts them as casually as she accepts a glass of water.

…………………………………………………

Ultimately, it's Sylar's disappearance that tears them apart.

That, and Elle's bitter heart. She walks in on Mohinder and Maya and that's when she walks out. She's halfway out the door before Mohinder catches her.

"Elle, wait." His fingers wrap around her wrist, warm and vital. She wants those hands, and that's why she needs to go.

"What, Mohinder? What am I supposed to do?"

"Look, Elle, I'm sorry."

She zaps him and walks out the door. Heads out of the hotel room and chooses a random direction. She's so sick of this. So sick of following Sylar and counting the bodies. She winds up in a park. Finds a bench and sits down.

Maybe she should just leave. Go back to the Company. Maybe then she'll finally be able to get some sleep.

Elle doesn't go back to the hotel room. Doesn't collect her things. Instead, she flips open her cell phone and punches in a familiar number.

"Hello?"

"Daddy? It's me. Elle."

…………………………………………………

He welcomes her back, of course. Tells her that the Company appreciates her efforts to capture Sylar, and that they, too, are aware of the strange changes in the style of his murders.

"What do you think it means?" she asks him.

"I don't know, honey. No way to tell."

…………………………………………………

Her father puts her on the case. Decides that she can redeem herself by investigating the new string of murders. No one believes for a second that Sylar is behind them.

It turns out that Elle was right. Samuel Nichols _was _an agent. So were half a dozen others, each assassinated in the same fashion. It makes Elle shiver when she considers what this might mean. Part of it is anticipation.

Her partner is a tall, blond man. He's brash and impulsive. Nothing like kind Peter, or gentle Mohinder. She thinks that that is enough.

On Tuesdays, they fuck quietly in one of the utility closets down the hall from her daddy's office. He likes it rough, enjoys it most when she shocks him right as he's climaxing. He's not nearly enough, but he fills the long hours sifting through files and examining new bodies. He doesn't get air sick when they travel, either.

…………………………………………………

Elle spends a few quiet years in this routine, and she's okay. She makes a major break through on the case, bags a suspect. The murders stop.

"You're glowing," her father tells her when she's promoted.

"It's just the electricity, Daddy."

He laughs.

"So it is. I always knew you were a special girl, Elle. You've proved me right."

There is no happier time in her life than those few months when her father approves of her, when her father tells her _(for the first time in her life)_ that he is proud of her. It's exactly what she has always wanted.

Then they find another corpse and Peter Petrelli rockets back into her life.

…………………………………………………

Her partner is quiet literally hiking up her skirt when Peter appears over his shoulder. She wants to gasp, or scream, or something, but instead she just moans, because her dashing, blond partner is digging his fingers into her fleshy hips, twisting and bruising.

At first, she thinks she is hallucinating. Wish fulfillment. Perhaps, after so many years of loose longing, her desires have tightened into this wild fantasy. She doesn't care. She'll take those dewy brown eyes any day.

Peter throws her lover off of her and doesn't bother to avert his eyes as she straightens up. She notes the difference.

"Peter."

"Elle. I need your help."

"To do what?"

"Save the world."

…………………………………………………

"So, let me get this straight. You're from the future."

"Right."

"And that's why you have that ugly scar on your face."

"Right."

His voice is lower. Must be a scar there too. Cool.

"And you need _me _to stop Sylarfrom taking Maya's power?"

"Exactly."

Elle's lips twist up.

"And it doesn't matter how I do that?"

"Correct."

"Easy." And then, because it occurs to her, "Say. Why does it have to be me?"

For a moment, Peter almost looks like he's gonna smile.

"Because I can't."

And then he is gone, before Elle gets to ask anymore questions.

It isn't the reunion Elle had hoped for. But it gives her hope.

She's already beginning to contemplate strategies when she hears the gunshot.

…………………………………………………

Elle barrels wildly into the hall. Already, there are people running. Dashing through open doorways, launching themselves toward the exits.

She notices her father's door is ajar. It's unusual.

Slowly, Elle creeps toward the door, squints in an effort to see inside without being seen. Nothing. Ever so slightly, she creaks the door open until there is just enough light to illuminate the contents of the room.

Bob Bishop's body is strewn over the floor, soaking in a pool of crimson blood. Elle screams, because she has seen the neat bullet hole through the eye socket before, years before, furrowed in the skull of Noah Bennett.

…………………………………………………

There is no evidence. There is no proof. Only the certainty that Claire Bennett—_little Claire Bennett_—is responsible for her father's death. For the deaths of every other Company member to go down.

Elle knows, with perfect clarity, that she must be the one to destroy her. For what she has done to her family, for what she has done to the Company, Claire Bennett must die.

It's too bad no one believes her.

…………………………………………………

Mohinder is called in. Apparently, arrangement had been made for him to take over the Company. Elle had never even been informed of his return to the fold. In fact, she hasn't seen him since she left him in that hotel room all those years ago. Frankly, time has not been good to him. Vaguely, she remembers something about that Molly girl turning up dead.

"You look about a hundred," she tells him when he calls her in to his office. Her daddy's office.

"And you look about thirty."

She laughs, a soft, tinkling sound.

"Elle, I'm very sorry about the circumstances of our… re-acquaintance. If there is anything I can do for you, please, let me know."

"Are you still seeing Maya?" she blurts out.

Mohinder looks down at the desk.

"No. Why?"

"Just curious." She smiles, begins to turn away.

"Is that all, Elle?"

"Yeah. That's all."

"You're sure?"

"Very."

…………………………………………………

For a time, Elle loses track of Claire. That doesn't mean that the blonde does not consume every waking thought. Not even Peter, the man whose memory she has dwelled upon for years, can shake her from thoughts of revenge.

Early on, she makes the decision to keep Mohinder out of the loop.

The problem, of course, is that she's in way over her head. How is she supposed to find Claire? A little research, and she realizes the girl has been M.I.A. for years. Even her own mother never sees her. Elle doubts that, even if she were to pay a visit to Sandra, Claire would show up to save her mother.

Briefly, she toys with the idea of killing Maya. Although she knows it would be more moral to chase Sylar instead, he's been untraceable for years. That means the only option is Maya, living by herself in Costa Verde. After all, Peter never told her she couldn't kill Maya. She just has to make sure Sylar never gets her power.

She's packing her bag to take care of Peter's business when she gets the news.

Mohinder is dead.

…………………………………………………

He was found dead in his old New York lab _(the same lab in which they spent so much time together). _

Clearly, Claire has killed him. It's obvious from the perfectly cylindrical hole in his head.

There are, of course, a few loose ends. The syringe lying next to Mohinder's body, filled with what turns out to be Claire's healing blood. And then…there is no sign of a struggle. Surely, Mohinder would have fought. Surely it could not have been easy for Claire to win. Besides… She didn't sneak up on him.

The forensics team is discussing evidence of a third party, but Elle doesn't listen. Instead, she goes over to Mohinder's desk. Notices the open notebook sitting in the corner. She can still smell the graphite underneath the heavy gunsmoke. The calculations are fresh.

"Elle? You shouldn't go through his papers."

She pulls out her Company ID. Mohinder hadn't had the heart to recall it after her daddy died.

"I have authorization to investigate." A memory flickers. "Do you know what these are?"

The forensic officer glances at the notebook.

"Something from his research, I'm sure."

"Right."

Except they're not. It's the same sort of math he was using all those years ago, when they were a team of hunters.

Mohinder has found Sylar.

…………………………………………………

When no one is looking, Elle snatches the notepad off of Mohinder's desk and stuffs it in her jacket.

Outside, she pours over the papers hungrily (_decides to forget about Maya_). Sylar is the _real _prize. And maybe (_just maybe_) she'll be able to find Claire, too, and make the kill that will allow her father's soul to rest in peace.

He turns out to be in Jersey of all places. At first she wishes that the human tracking system weren't dead, but, in the end, his apartment isn't too hard to find.

She gives him credit. All those years spent in hiding and he's been right under the Company's nose the whole time. The brownstone he's living in is truly unremarkable, almost impossible to notice under the gray Northeastern clouds.

Elle is confident when she readjusts her silver Company issue gun. She doesn't think she'll need it (_not with what she's carrying)_, but she likes to have it for good measure.

She climbs one, two, three flights of stairs before arriving outside his door. Maybe she's imaging it, but she thinks she can feel him through the walls. Her breath comes quickly to her as she kicks down the door, her hands already on fire, ready to zap if necessary.

There's no one in the darkened front room. On the periphery, she hears a door creak. She wheels, finds Sylar himself standing in the shadow of the doorframe.

He's standing there in dark pants, arms crossed over a bare chest.

"Look who it is here," he coos.

Suddenly, Elle feels sick, because she is certain that she is overmatched. She feels the rightness of that thought when she is flung backwards onto the nearest wall. Her hands are raised, pinned helplessly beside her to the wall. Inadvertent streams of blue electricity shoot from her hands. Elle cringes as she sees Sylar's eyes light, as she notes the way he stalks toward her.

"Well, isn't that just neat?"

Elle has already closed her eyes when she hears the second set of footsteps enter the room.

"_Elle_?"

Her eyes snap open, because she would know that voice anywhere.


	4. For the Forgiveness of Sins

**And All the Stars Fell Down **

by adlyb

Disclaimer: I own nothing, except these words.

* * *

What is it makes a man? He asks himself this as Claire steps out of the deep shadows of his bedroom, only to gasp when she sees the doll splayed decoratively across his bare gray living room wall.

"_You_." The words tumble from her lips _(the dead flesh around her mouth—the flesh that is eternal—moves only to prove that they are real) _like autumn leaves, rustling softly until they reach his doll's ears.

The doll begins to move _(limbs and twisting neck held by string)_, a dancing marionette _(moving only because he wills it so)_.

Behind him, she speaks, and she is so close he can feel her breath trickling between those lips _(the eternal breath that is both hers and now his, and he cannot be sure whether she is of his flesh or if he is now of hers)_ onto his skin. The hair on the back of his neck stands up, and he does not turn, except for the faintest perversion of his neck.

"What is she doing here?" she breathes, her words _(the first she's spoken to him since _after_) _as insubstantial as stardust.

"Hmm? Oh, yes." He takes a moment to smile fondly at the _(carnally) _familiar blonde behind him. "That's a very _good _question." He looks to the dolly on the wall. "Elle? Anything to say?"

He remembers an old trifling feeling he'd had for her, years ago now, and is reminded why. She's beautiful, really. Blonde and tall and lusciously curvaceous; almost Claire, but not quite. She makes a wonderful toy though, fastened as she is to the wall behind her, face painted in myriad shades of blue and red and yellow and all other colors desirable unto him.

She is about to speak, he can tell, except no words come. Then he remembers that he has forgotten to give her lips and tongue and other slick biting things when he named her _Elle_. He lifts a hand, tweaks it just so until language—globs of undilute words—gush from her mouth

_god damn you Claire god damn you for what you did to my father let me go let me go let me go_

and she thrashes against him, as if she had will of her own.

Sylar tweaks that finger back, snapping those white teeth shut and pushing the undiluted venom back into her lungs. Such a pretty doll when she doesn't speak.

"Uh-uh, Elle," he tells her, wagging his finger. "That's not what I asked. Now—shall we try again?" He raises and eyebrow at her and for a moment it's quite clear what thoughts pass through her mind. He smirks, because he knows always what his effect on women has become. He steps closer to her. "This time, try to be honest."

He smiles, because he can hear the wild slamming of her heart against her bones, the dizzy creak of her ribcage as her diaphragm pumps for air.

When he finally gives her her faculties back, she gulps, a loud smacking of her epiglottis against her throat. Her mouth works and she says nothing.

Slowly, very careful to control the volume, Sylar releases a small dose of pheromone, just enough to make her putty in his too capable hands.

"Elle? Don't you want to tell me?"

Her lips _(soft and vulnerable and easily torn)_ parts and then she tells him. "For you. I'm here for you."

"Oh?" Such a pleasant girl, he decides.

"And for Claire."

He can feel Claire tense, can feel her eyes roving the apartment, searching.

"For Claire," he repeats.

"Because of what she did to my father..."

"I don't see how that has anything to do with me."

Claire isn't on the move yet, but she will be soon. She's trying _(very, very hard)_ to remain unnoticed, a blemish in the background, as she searches inevitably for a weapon.

The predator in him admires her. Part of him wishes to turn, to enjoy her prowl, to watch the kill.

But Elle is speaking, and he must listen.

"…found your location… the data was sitting on his desk."

Stupid mistake, he realizes. He doesn't like to make mistakes.

"And you followed me here?"

"Yes…"

"That's a lot of trouble just to get caught, Elle."

She looks down, sullen. "It's what Peter wanted."

"Peter?"

"Petrelli. I'm only here because he asked—"

Something rams into him from behind, breaking his hold on Elle. His head snaps back fast, just before a golden foot knocks him to his knees and something cold and heavy _(a silver handgun, he is sure)_ presses to the back of his skull. Should've paid more attention to Claire after all.

…………………………………………….

There are only moments for her to make a move. Mere moments until he realizes what she is doing and she must either fight or fly. Who'd have thought that Elle would be the one to spring her free? She supposes that sparing Elle's life was really just good thinking in the end. Well, that, and Sylar seems to have a thing for blondes.

Her eyes scan the living room, searching for a weapon. Sylar is completely absorbed in the other woman's words, and if Claire is jealous, she does not pause to think on it.

The room is full of possible weaponry. A lamp-stand behind her to the right, a fire stoker perhaps fifteen feet away. Nothing, she realizes with certain anxiety, that would obstruct Sylar. That's when she sees it. Glinting in the morning sun, a beautiful, care-worn, polished handgun, forgotten in a far corner of the room. The likelihood of this moment is so slim, she realizes. At any other time of day, the sun would not hit that corner at just the right angle to catch the rays of the sun, and she would not have had her opportunity. If Elle had not come _just then_, there would be no distraction. But miracles do happen.

Claire is moving, slowly, slowly, listening only dimly to the conversation. _That's a lot of trouble just to get caught Elle it's what Peter wanted Peter—_her hand is just clasping the hand-guard—_Petrelli. _

The world falls down.

The time she spends in quiet hesitation must be mere seconds—milliseconds—but it is enough for Claire to realize that if it isn't _now_, it will be _never_.

She bursts across the room, slamming into Sylar with hardened years of death on her shoulders. Incapacitating him when he's unawares is simple—he never was much of a fighter without his powers. Hoisting the gun to the back of his head, right to the special, tender part of which she's sure he's still ignorant, is easy, easy like her first swan dive off that long-ago abandoned Texas tower.

Claire's fingers squeeze tight and then he is dead upon the floor, quiet and almost beautiful in certain lights. She has no time to admire him. Soon he will stir, and she needs to _know_ before that can happen.

Sylar's hold on Elle elapses a moment after his death, and she crashes to the floor. Claire's hand is immediately upon her, closing around her throat and pushing her up against the wall. Friction dances off of Elle's skin, burning into her palms, itching madly as her healing powers renew the singing flesh.

"What the _hell _do you know about Peter Petrelli?" she demands, voice harsh and low, hiding the fear she feels coiled like a snake in her belly.

"What's it to you?" Elle asks, and oh, Claire hates her, knows that the feeling is truly mutual.

"Does it matter?"

Elle eyes her, shrugs. "I guess not."

"So—I'll ask you one more time, _Elle_. What do you know about Peter?"

Those blue eyes—cruel at any angle—slide over to hers, and for a moment, she looks almost wistful.

Claire hears what Elle isn't saying, fills in the blanks as she speaks.

"What do I know? I know the texture of his hair _(because I cut it)_, I know how soft his mouth is _(because I kissed it)_, I know how he looks when he's lying _(because he deceived me)_, and I know what it feels like when he's gone _(because I love him)_."

A sick feeling, because, as disturbed as Elle is, she is not of Peter's blood. What can she say for _herself_, the niece consumed by a perverse adoration of an uncle? She speaks, and her voice is very, very quiet. "Do you also know he's dead _(because I killed him)_?"

Silvery laughter. "Dead? Since when?"

Claire swallows the lump rising in her throat. "Six years now. Since…" Say it. "Since Kirby Plaza."

The tears are coming down Elle's face now—not the kind that follow grief, but the kind that follow a good joke. "Oh, you poor, poor girl. I can't imagine—thinking…" She trails off.

"Shut up, Elle." The command isn't worth very much when Elle doesn't listen.

"Oh, Claire Bennett, all grown up. I preferred you when you were a cheerleader."

Hatred is strong and it is sure and it gives Claire the clarity to grit through her teeth, "You're saying Peter's alive?"

"Sure looked that way to me, Claire."

Understanding dawns, bright and ugly. He's been hiding from her—_alive_—because he must _know_. No other options, she realizes, other than to find him.

"_When? How?_"

Elle looks somewhere above her shoulder. "He asked me… He told me I needed to help him save the world."

Definitely Peter.

"What's it to you, anyway?" Elle asks again, and this time, Claire is ready to answer her.

After all these years, it doesn't even make her flinch when she smacks the butt of her gun against Elle's temple. The dull crack as the metal connects with bone is only muffled by the sound Elle's body makes when she hits the ground. She stands over her. _What's it to you, anyway? _"Because I loved him too," she murmurs, stepping over Sylar's body on the way out.

…………………………………………….

For the longest time Claire Bennett was just a name. It had salacious connotations that made his mouth water, the same way _hamburger _did. For months he had wet dream after wet dream of consuming her power, of gaining her _invulnerability_, her _immortality_. There was no face attached to the name, only the nubile description of a blonde Texan cheerleader in a red uniform.

He cut a swath through the Midwest, slaughtering everything _special _he found along the way, until there was only Claire—perfect, plump Claire.

Their meeting did not go as expected. The rest was history.

…………………………………………….

Strange, waking up, because he is cognizant of his skin knitting back together before he is conscious, aware of the slow stretch of cranial bone as it strives to repair itself before he opens his eyes. A truly miraculous gift.

The room swims into focus, all lavenders and browns before his eyes make sense of the true shape of things. The light coming from the window indicates that it must have taken several hours for his body to repair itself. The predator in him admires her.

Sylar understands, just before he regains control over his body, what has happened. Claire _(beautiful, intransient Claire) _has murdered him. He marvels over their remarkably close connections—the connections they now share through blood _(the blood he shed the first time he threw her against a set of lockers, her blood drawing him from the brink of death as it filtered through his veins, and then the blood of victims, the blood he smelt only yesterday when he took her the first time, his own lifeblood, now pooling admirably on the living room floor, which she has shed for herself and for many)_. Part of him is flattered that she has intensified their connection _(after all, to whom are you closer than to those whose lives you take?)_, marvels that she was able to find an advantage over him. The other part _(the part that is a man)_ is heartsick over Claire, the woman who murdered him, the woman who has, it seemed, left him after all.

He stands, testing the strength of his arms, legs, and turns. He does not expect to find her still here _(she will have already fled the Eden he has tried to create for her)_, but he does not expect to find Elle, either.

He approaches her, finds she is still breathing. He brushes a hand over her hair, the fine, frosty strands clinging to his hand. Static electricity, he supposes. Interesting.

The wound on her head is bright, a sinuous, carmine stripe on her pale face. He lowers himself to her and, sure that she is asleep, allows his tongue to dart out, taste the flavor of it. Not like Claire's blood at all _(but it will do)_.

A memory stirs, of that fateful day in the ally so long ago—of blood slipping through his veins, and he wonders if his blood might be as potent as Claire's.

When it doesn't work to heal the girl on the ground, he is almost disappointed. So much for experimentation.

He is just about to slice the pretty dolly's head open to get a good look at the fluff inside when her eyes flutter open.

At first she is afraid, trembling. Then she hardens and she is a beautiful porcelain piece and very much worth his time examining.

"You're not dead." A statement, not a question.

He laughs. "Of course not. My kind don't die very easily."

She nods. Looks toward the window, which bothers him, more than anything else, because her attention should be focused on him _(before all others)_.

"So," he begins, drawing her eyes back, "Where did our lovely Claire go?"

The look she gives him is rueful. "Does it look like I know?" She indicates the tail of blood slithering down her face.

"Quite." He raises her hand, ready to kill her, exhaust her completely.

"Wait!" she yells, panic clear in her pretty voice. She rises to her knees, crawls towards him, something familiar in her eyes. "Aren't you… curious?"

"Curious," he repeats, voice flat. There is no time for women and their merciless games any longer. All he wants is to kill this woman, this former fascination, and give himself a few minutes to regroup before he finds Claire.

Just thinking of her causes a mad pulse of feelings within him—rage, lust, ownership, _betrayal_. He pushes her from his mind forcefully.

"There are other things I could show you… other than Claire's whereabouts." A gentle exhalation of _(serpent's) _breath against his too easily persuaded ear.

When Elle presses forward, he wants only the contrast she represents.

She snakes her arms around his neck and presses her mouth to his. He understands what this is, understands that this is survival for her, but… if he has the dolly all dressed up, why not play with her first?

…………………………………………….

He takes her on the floor _(the dust kicking when she writhes beneath him)_. He is angry and frustrated and the rhythm makes his teeth grind, but Elle just delicately digs her fingers into his back, sinking them beneath the flesh and holding, holding, pressing him always forward and back.

For Elle, this is about survival and something about his dark complexion that sets her nerve endings on fire and lets her pretend, and fuck it, isn't he pretending too?

She hooks a leg over his hip, driving him deeper within her. The feeling _(hot and he wouldn't be surprised if with every contraction she was zinging him because it's that good) _agitates him, causes him to rock harder against her until with every pulse her head is thumping against the ground and he _just doesn't care_.

Neither does she, apparently, because soon she is crooning his name, chanting it between every timed thrust—_Sylar-Sylar-Sylar-Sylar_—and this is twisted, even by his standards. He wants to ask her, ask her, _Whose your daddy now, Elle? Whose your daddy now? _

Satisfaction overwhelms him when she peaks. So hard to tell with Claire whether she was enjoying it.

He imagines Claire, all languid curves and tiny fingers and toes—a paragon of hushed femininity. The thought of her naked beneath him, her sweet-sad smile pressed into his shoulder, drives him over the edge, and he comes, shouts, "Claire!" before pulling out.

…………………………………………….

Sylar had never stepped a foot outside New York until the day he killed Brian Davis. Until that moment, the snivel known as Gabriel Grey had only seen the world through snow globes and magazine advertisements. He'd never been bothered by it, though; everything of importance had been contained in his tick-ticking watch repair shop.

Better than anything he remembers the day his father left. A regular day, not stormy or dark, just… normal. Out to get a pack of cigarettes and never returning.

He'd known he wasn't coming back, of course. Had him all figured out from the moment the gear turned in his head, like he seemed to have every other person on the planet figured out. Didn't stop him from running after him, of course.

Gabriel had stopped at the door, cracking it open to peer at his father's back as he shouldered his over-coat.

"Dad?" he had called.

His father had turned, appraised him silently before speaking. "Yes, Gabriel?" Never Gabe with him, always Gabriel.

"When will you be coming home?"

"Just out for a quick pack of smokes, son. Back in half an hour, I promise." Lying, of course. Didn't make the moment any less sweet.

His father turns away again, and this time, Gabriel reaches a hand out, snags the rough fabric of his father's coat between his fingers.

"Dad?"

Impatient now. "Yes, Gabriel?"

"You'll help me fix that car when you get back?"

A faint smile crosses his father's lips. "About time to stop playing with hot-wheels, don't you think, son? You're almost eleven now." He pauses. "Here," he says as he fishes through his coat before unfastening the antique watch from his wrist. "Have a go at this. If you can fix it, I'll promise to share a secret with you."

"What secret?"

…………………………………………….

What is it makes a man? He lies awake, after, wondering. He's had Claire for less than seventy-two hours and already he's forsaken her. He feels this _(this fall from Grace) _and curses the woman touching kisses to his skin. Sylar doesn't like her a lot right now, even if she is a pretty piece. Roughly, he yanks at her hair, until she is forced to look at him.

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you _(bash in your head)_."

Elle is slack-jawed for a moment, her reddened lips lingering just over the crest of his hip. Finally, a white, fleshy hand brushes its fingers _just there_. She speaks when he shivers. "Claire—you seem… _interested_ in her."

Only the memory of just after, when Claire was still warm in his bed, pressed into him, when her sad little girl's eyes turned to him and told him she had done it because it was easy, only then did he remember the one all-important detail of her inexhaustible existence.

"You have no idea."

"Well, she's gone now…"

"Yes... And I'm inclined to blame you for it."

The fear again. He really loves it.

"_Me? _What did _I _do?"

"Peter. A very sensitive topic with her."

Unconsciously, Elle traces the dried blood on her temple. "I noticed. A little strange, to be so hung up over her uncle."

He laughs, and he cannot stop, because it's so _true_. Claire, his Claire, pining for an uncle dead for six years now, and him, coveting the woman he met because he incidentally tossed her into a cement wall when he mistook another cheerleader for the special one _(how could he be so stupid?)_ and the three of them, Peter and Claire and Sylar, meeting all on one night. Unbelievable. He kicks himself for being the catalyst that drove the two of them together—or rather, the catalyst that has Claire permanently stuck on another man. He actually congratulates himself for being orchestrating the schmuck's death all those years ago in New York.

Elle sits back on her haunches, hands on her lush thighs as she watches him laugh. "That funny?"

"You'd have to be there to understand."

She doesn't want to look at him anymore, and that's fine, because he doesn't particularly want to look at her anymore either.

"You still haven't given me a reason not to slice your head open," he tells her quietly.

Her eyes bug as she thinks of some response. Comes up with, "Won't you need a lead to find her?"

He smirks, because he has her. "No, I really won't." He pauses, musing. "Her whereabouts will be… quite obvious, really. I'm a little… _perturbed, _actually, that she would attempt to runaway _(but the predator in him is enjoying this)_." To prove his point, he pulls a map off the coffee table. He closes his eyes and hones his powers. Frowns. When he does not find her in New Jersey, he moves to the tri-state region, then the Northeast, then the country. Finally, he finds a world map, panics when she is nowhere.

* * *

_A/N: A short chapter, but hopefully an interesting one. Hope the syllelle! wasn't too hard to stomach. In the mean time, I'll be working on chapter 5 and finishing this little number up. Please read and review! _


	5. All the Lights in the Heavens

**And All the Stars Fell Down**

by adlyb

Disclaimer: I own nothing, except these words.

_A/N: I realized while writing this that, as the story was originally developed before season 3 came out, I didn't know some backstory information about Sylar/Elle at the time. For this reason, assume they didn't meet until the timeline of this story. _

* * *

In the darkening evening light, his eyes flash like stars. Bright and lovely, something to look at and memorize and wish upon. What are stars, though, she thinks, other than the energy of death?

Sylar rips atlases off the bookshelf, flinging them open and attempting—in _vain_, she wants to add—to find little Claire Bennet. He doesn't look at her as he works, and she is okay with that, because it gives her the opportunity to get a better look at him as she reweighs her options.

This hasn't gone the way she thought it would. Not at all. She came here to put this beast down and instead ended up being put down (_flat on her back_).

Not that many hours ago, Claire _had _killed him. He just hadn't stayed particularly dead.

At this point, retreat seems like the best tactic. And after that… she'd take a trip to Costa Verde and ask Maya _¿Qué pas__ó__?_

Slowly, so as not to draw his attention (_not that he cares enough about her to rouse himself from searching for his _cherished _Claire_) (_by the way, she _really _hates that girl_) she inches her hand into her coat pocket until her fingers wrap around her cell phone. She dials her partner on speed dial and hopes he will hear her when she speaks. Elle is at least thankful for the GPS card the Company inserted into her SMS card.

She waits a moment and hopes her partner has answered because she knows she won't go through with this if she doesn't act now.

"_Sylar_," she annunciates. "What's the problem?"

"I don't _understand_," he snarls under his breath.

Elle might, if she wanted to put some thought into it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the puzzle pieces are waiting to be snicked together.

"You've got _Molly Walker's_ power, _Sylar_, I don't see what's taking you so long. _Newark _isn't that big."

He glares at her for a moment and Elle fears he is on to her.

Sylar shifts forward as though he will grab her, but stops short. "Unless you have some information for me, will you shut up?"

Elle sighs, relieved. Soon, her partner will arrive and extract her from the operation. She can go to Costa Verde and finish Peter's mission for him. Everything will be right, she assures herself, when she kills Maya. Then, maybe Peter will appreciate her.

In the mean time, Sylar's hair is dark, and there may be nothing gentle about him, but in the darkening evening light, his eyes flash like stars and for Elle, who is really starting to get tired of being tossed like a ragdoll between men, it seems like a good enough reason to let herself fall a little bit in love with him too.

…

Saying he is afraid would be an over-exaggeration.

Claire's a resilient girl. If her spirit is broken, her body will still recover (_he remembers her silver handgun, the way those small, darling hands caressed it as she cocked it against the meat of her lower brain and feels his composure breaking off of his soul like ice plummeting from a berg into the ocean_).

Sylar abandons his maps and scans the room, shoving Elle out of the way when she blocks his view. The handgun, he notices with a hint of unease, is missing.

"Did Claire say anything before she left?"

Elle shifts away and it's pathetically _suspicious_. "No," she says without meeting his eyes. "She didn't even spare you a second glance before she was out the door."

He wishes her words weren't so believable. And yet—

Elle's tongue flicks out, past her teeth _(like a snake's)_, as she nervously licks her lips.

"You don't strike me as the type of woman to tell the whole truth the first time you're asked. What aren't you telling me?"

She shifts between him and the door, like she can't decide whether to throw herself at his mercy or attempt an escape. Her white, white shoulders catch shadows that shift over her skin like spiders.

"Elle," he chides, growing impatient. "Now would be the time to tell me anything you might know."

He can almost see the cogs working in her head, moving in smooth rhythm as she develops her response. Everything about Elle runs smoothly, punctually. She's a piece of perfect machinery—and it makes her _boring_. He's not an idiot. He can tell she's a psychopath of the finest caliber. It's just her psychopathy keeps her functional.

"The last thing she said was about Peter Petrelli," Elle mumbles.

The name has the effect it always has. Sylar feels a sick little twist in his gut before remembering that the guy is dead before remembering, _oh wait_, he just found out he's been strolling around, very much _alive_, for the past six years.

"So what does Petrelli have to do with Claire? You think she's scampered off to go find him?"

"Maybe. But that doesn't explain—Where is she? She can't have just vanished. Not unless…"

_Unless she's dead._ He remembers Molly Walker trying to find Alejandro, all those years ago in New York. Worry begins to niggle him as he ponders the limits of her power. Claire would have had a few hours to end herself by now. Did she have the means to find a permanent solution to her guilt?

Elle steps closer and clutches at his arm. "She's not on the map—and if you were using Molly Walker's power—I _assume _you were using her power—that either means she's dead or—"

Elle does not get the chance to finish her sentence before the door bursts in and the room floods with agents.

…

For endless miles, everything is dead. Bloated bodies simmer and pop like bacon grease under the Southern sun, tar black tears oozing down their cadaverous maws. Even the vegetation drips in slow puddles to the ground as the leaves rot and fester.

This is the world Peter is trying to discard in favor of another. At least, that's what Hiro has told her. She hasn't actually _seen _Peter yet, only heard a few things. Apparently, temporally removing her from contact with Sylar (_so he didn't kill her and go on a genocidal rage when she didn't wake up again_) had been Hiro's job. Peter's job had been eliminating the original owner of the power so Sylar could never obtain it.

Claire hates to think assassinations (_murders_) are Peter's jobs these days. She wishes they had come to her with this, because she's just the girl for a dirty job like this. And because then she would at least have a purpose.

…

Not so long ago (_but also years ago, in the literal sense_) Claire shot a ringing bullet through Sylar's kill spot. She'd just been thankful he hadn't known about it.

When she'd left, she'd been penduluming between her desire to kill herself in a way so thorough not even Sylar could resurrect her and pulling her hair out trying to think of a way to find Peter before Sylar regained consciousness. How long would she have? A few hours?

As fate (_the one she used to insist isn't written in stone, though it seems more and more fixed each day she draws breath_) would have it, she had run into Hiro—a cool Hiro with a samurai sword and an American accent—within the first hour of her escape. Turned out, Sylar hadn't been the only one with a fixation on the former cheerleader.

"Claire," he had called, voice almost reverent as he spoke her name. "I need you to come with me."

"Why would I do that?" she had asked. Her reluctance had been a farce. Really, she had been relieved to find him, just when she needed him.

"Because saving you always seems to save the world."

She had squinted her eyes at him as she studied him. Had done the math. Had realized, "You're present day Hiro, aren't you?" Pudgy naïve Hiro had been dead for years.

"Yes, and no. Will you come with me?"

"Are you working with Peter?"

He had hesitated, and she had not missed it. "Yes."

But the chances were—"That's good enough for me."

Claire had taken his hand, and didn't let go until they were two years into the future.

…

The agents swarm his apartment and he doesn't know what pisses him off more: that Elle has led them to his hideout, or that she gets herself nabbed before he can throw the agents off of him.

He breaks their necks before crumpling them like discarded paper against the wall. Sylar steps up to the nearest window and watches as Elle is forced into an unmarked van.

She's worse than useless (_but a good fuck_). He should just let them take her off his hands. Except Claire is no longer with him.

He imagines what it would be like to spend his copious (_infinite_) free time with Elle. His skin itches as the sense memory of her electricity fires.

The moment passes.

He waits for the van to disappear around a corner before he steps out onto the street.

He wanders somewhat aimlessly for awhile, hoping to come across Claire's stirring remains.

After an hour, he checks for her again on a map in hopes she has awakened. Again, he finds nothing.

He begins to fear searching for her is futile.

_That either means she's dead or—_

Perhaps he will fetch Elle after all.

He performs a quick search with a library atlas and locates her in New York.

A quick teleport is all it takes to infiltrate Primatech, a flick of his wrist all that's necessary to eliminate the greeting party. Sylar does not need to do anything at all to heal the bullet wounds littering his torso, save wait for the inevitable passage of time. The ease with which he _survives _reminds him of why he must find Claire.

Elle looks at him with wide, skeptical eyes when he tears the door off of her holding cell.

He flicks his eyes over the internment uniform they've already fitted her in. "Thought you were one of them."

"I am."

He doesn't bother trying to argue with her. He is a little curious though. "Why did they lock you up?"

"Quarantine. They wanted to make sure my time with you hadn't fucked me up." She laughs a little. "It's standard procedure."

"I'd be flattered if a few measly hours alone with me could leave a scratch on you." He holds out his hand. "You're coming with me?"

Elle backs away, into the corner of the holding tank. As though that will hide her. She holds up her arm and sends a wave of blue electricity into his chest. "I don't plan to. I have more important plans."

He crumples to the floor near the door as Elle shoves past him.

The electricity does not stun him long enough for her to make her escape.

Sylar grabs her around the ankle and drags her to the floor with him. He settles on top of her as he informs her, "You had a theory concerning where Claire could be."

"Yeah. Dead in an alley. Do you mind letting me up? I have a job to do."

"No, a different one."

She looks away.

He knows it is probably the _right _theory because she doesn't want to tell him.

"I'll make you a deal. You bring me to Costa Verde, I'll let you know where I suspect Claire is."

"Costa Verde is on the other side of the country. Why would I take a detour like that?"

"Because if you don't, I won't tell you what I know."

"There are other ways to make you talk."

"Try it. I'm a psychopath. I like pain, and not just giving it."

"I'd kill you."

"If I don't get this job done, I won't care to live."

Girl drives a hard bargain.

"Fine. Deal."

Sylar blinks, and they arrive in Costa Verde.

…

If Elle could have any power—well, she'd have her own, because she really likes her power. But if she could have any power other than her own, say, for a partner to have, she would _so _choose Molly Walker's power because it makes finding Maya and fulfilling her promise to Peter easy as pie.

When she tells Sylar who it is they're paying a visit to, he throws the map down.

"_Fuck_, you never mentioned we were looking Maya Herrera up."

"What, is that a problem for you? You scared?"

"No. I just already know how that's going to go."

"And? You have Claire's power. If anyone's going to be in danger, it's going to be me."

He rubs the bridge of his nose. "What's the point of this exercise, exactly?"

"We just need to have a chat. You give me twenty minutes alone with her, I'll tell you where I'd bet anything Claire's gone."

In the end, he grumbles, but there's almost a hint of humor in his black eyes that makes her hope this'll all end peachy keen.

He agrees to wait outside the front door (_which he opens for her, like a perfect gentleman_) as she scopes the house.

Idle thoughts flit through her mind as she passes bright ceramic crockery, a sewing kit left open on a leather ottoman. What kind of life is Maya leading right now? What is she about to destroy?

The feeling she has is unfamiliar (_almost like regret_) and she doesn't like it one bit.

She finds Maya dozing in a green comfy chair by a window, a copy of _Cien A__ñ__os de Soledad _open on her lap.

The most efficient thing to do will be to zap her in her sleep.

She hears footsteps coming from the entryway. She curses her stupidity in letting Sylar come along. Why couldn't he just wait outside?

Electricity starts to trickle into her fingers.

Maya stirs.

…

"Hiro, take me back."

"That won't accomplish anything."

"No, it _will. _If keeping me out of Sylar's way was going to change the future, it would have, and I wouldn't be looking at all these rotting bodies. Take me back, and I'll take care of whoever had this power myself."

"Claire, you don't know what you're saying. Living with murder—"

"Is something I already have to do. Look, if this girl's power is emitting some sort of noxious gas or whatever, then I'm clearly the girl for the job. Peter obviously hasn't gotten it done. _Take me back_."

Hiro looks a little disgusted, but also resigned. "Okay. The target's name is Maya Herrera. She's a sweet girl. You're sure you can handle this?"

"I already told you: yes."

"One more thing. Peter brought Elle Bishop in to do the job. She may be there."

Claire rolls her eyes. "Of course she will."

…

Maya straightens in the chair.

"Elle? What are you doing in my house?"

Time has been good to Maya; her face is still beautiful and her accent has cleared into a dreamy lilt.

Elle tries to keep the currents in her hands inconspicuous. She must strike viperously fast, or else Maya's power will trigger and she'll never make it out of the room.

"Elle? What has happened?" The other woman raises her hand and Elle mimics the movement.

"I'm sorry, Maya." Blue light arcs from her palms and knocks her former rival from the chair.

Elle steps forward to take a look.

Maya's sundress is flipped past her hips, revealing lacy pink underwear and miles of tanned thighs. The girl must be unconscious, surely, else she'd have fixed her dress already.

Another step, and Elle can look directly into Maya's face. Her eyes are open, and they are a bottomless black.

Elle sinks to the floor, helpless. She gasps for air, but her throat burns and it feels like she's swallowing tar.

Maya rises like a siren from the Aegean. "You dare come into my house and attack _me_?" She spits on the floor near Elle's face. "Why? Why would you do this, Elle? Because of Mohinder? Are you still so jealous after all these years?"

This is it, Elle supposes. One last desperate gamble, all for the sake of a pair of kind eyes that never looked at her with anything but pity and calculation. Would Peter know she'd failed? Would he care that she'd given up her life to attempt this for him, just because he'd asked _her_?

A black heeled boot steps into her line of vision. The boot runs into a black pant leg (_but the leg doesn't run very far, because the owner is rather short_). Blonde hair brushes against the neck. The hands fidget at the waist.

Elle's vision begins to kaleidoscope. The sensation reminds her of all those years ago, when she first experienced the suffocation of betrayal.

Claire doesn't flounder for a moment under the pressure of Maya's poisonous miasma. She draws the gun from her waist, the motion long and smooth.

Maya shrieks and backs away. "Please," she says. "I don't want any trouble. I was only defending myself."

"I'm sorry," Claire says, "But trouble's all I've got."

A gunshot rings out, and Maya drops dead.

Immediately, Elle begins to regain consciousness. For the first time, she realizes there is someone else in the room.

He's a dark Asian man with a face like death that she recognizes as Hiro Nakamura. Her suspicions, she is pleased to realize, had been correct (_somewhat_).

"Get up," Claire tells her quietly. "I finished your job. Apocalypse averted."

"So what are you going to do?" Elle asks as she rises on her elbows to get a better look at the stupid ex-cheerleader.

"We're going back to the future." Hiro pauses and a smile cracks over his lips for just a moment. Then his face resettles into imposing lines. "To keep Claire safe from Sylar."

"Why are you telling me all of this?"

"Because Peter saw fit to trust you. That's enough."

Claire gives her one last look, and it isn't what she had been expecting from the girl at all.

Everything Claire has taken from her, Elle took first. It's not friendship Claire offers her, but it's something close, something a lot like camaraderie.

"We gotta save the world, right?" Elle mumbles.

Something in Claire's eyes looks a little less distant and a little better than Elle had seen in a very long time. "Yeah, that's right."

…

Sylar hears the gunshot, followed by the sharp silence that always follows a kill. He'll wait til the twenty minutes are over, though. It's already been seventeen minutes, fifty-three seconds. He has no intention of giving Elle any reason to back out of their agreement.

After twenty minutes exactly have passed, Sylar slips through the front door and wanders towards the back of the house, to where he can see Elle leaning over Maya's still body.

So the Mexican bitch is dead. Good.

"Some chat. What'd she say?"

"Not much. It was too bad she had to die. She wasn't really hurting anything, living quietly in California."

"So why'd you kill her?"

"Because Peter didn't want you to have her power." Elle fingers the bullet hole in Maya's skull. The wound has splattered any cerebral architecture Sylar would have used to learn her ability.

Elle wipes her hands on her pants as she stands up. "Did you want to hear my theory?"

Sylar turns his attention to the blonde. "That's the arrangement."

"Fine. Here it goes: Claire is in the future. She's out of your grasp, and she's not coming back."

"That's a stretch." He pauses, thinking it over. "How do you know that's correct?"

"Because that's where Peter is. And because she was here, not five minutes ago with Hiro Nakamura, and they told me they were going and not coming back. _All to keep Claire from you."_

That sick little twist writhes in his gut. "She's with Peter," he repeats.

"Yes."

The desire to skin the messenger alive is the first reaction which floods his gut as he imagines Claire, reunited with her pushover uncle at last.

Sylar remains perfectly still as he regains his reason. Eventually, the fury tamps down deep inside of him and he feels as though he is ready to speak. Claire must have left some indication of when she was traveling to. All he'd have to do was find a time traveler and he could track her from there.

As Sylar opens his mouth to speak, Peter Petrelli appears near Maya's breakfast table.

"I'm getting really tired of everybody doing that," Elle whines.

Sylar raises his hand to kill him but the boy flicks his wrist in a strange mirror of his own gesture and suddenly Sylar finds himself trapped flat against the wall. He struggles, but his limbs won't move a millimeter. He finds he can't even open his mouth to speak. He's a little offended that fucking _Peter _is strong enough to keep him leashed.

Peter turns his attention back to Elle, like Sylar is as inconsequential as a fly on the wall. He gestures toward Maya's corpse. "You killed her. Good."

Elle looks up at Peter with big blue doe eyes (_in a way no one ever looks at Sylar_). "Did I do good? Are you happy with me?"

The pity is clear on Peter's face as he regards the girl. "Yes. You did good." He tucks her hair behind her ear. "I _am _happy with you."

Peter turns to face Sylar, and, for the first time, Sylar gets a good look at the deep scar that slashes Peter's face in half. He's a little bit mollified that it ruins the boy's pretty looks.

The clamp on Sylar's mouth slackens enough for him to speak. "Why go through so much trouble to take Claire from me? I can't believe you care so much for her, seeing as you abandoned her for so many years."

Perhaps Peter looks a little ashamed as he answers, "Be that as it may. I couldn't let you murder her."

"Murdering her is the farthest thing from my mind, believe me."

"I do believe you. That's why you lost it when she died and didn't wake up again."

Elle tugs at Peter's arm. "Don't provoke him."

"I've got him, Elle. You don't have to worry about him."

"You know why I think you really took her back to whatever schizo future you've got yourself?" He sneers suggestively. "Because you couldn't stand the thought of me fucking her. Couldn't stand the idea of her tan little legs wrapped around me as I—"

"That's enough!"

He's right. It is.

In his outrage, Peter's concentration had faltered enough for Sylar to slip free of his bonds. This time, he would be ready to shield himself should Peter attempt anything.

Things progress very quickly from there.

He charges Peter with a bolt of something very dark and deadly, and Elle shoves her way in front of Peter. Sylar's hand connects with the soft, soft tissue of her left breast as the energy burrows into the muscle of her heart.

Peter hits him back (_hard_).

He cannot see straight for a long time after that.

When he recovers, he finds Elle dead in Peter's arms, a beatific smile on her face.

Peter looks up at him. It must have been the angle, because he looks like an old man. "Always killing. It doesn't matter who you kill, though. You won't find her. Can't you just move on?"

"I'll tear the stars from the heavens before I give Claire up."

Peter shuts his eyes. "I thought you might say something like that."

…

_At some point, Hiro gives her to another Hiro from the future she's just created. _

The earth heaves. Trees slip free of the soil packing their roots as they tumble to the ground, a forest of clumsy ballerinas. The call of wild birds whistles overhead, shrill, chainsaw shrieks as they flee the sinking forest.

"What's doing that?" Claire breathes.

Hiro (_new, even more serious Hiro_) brushes against her shoulder. "He can double the weight of anything he touches."

"I don't understand…"

"If he touches it again, the weight doubles again, and so on, exponentially. Eventually, the compounded weight forms a black hole."

The trees are gone now; the hills they once covered collapse and buckle like a cake with too little yeast.

"It's beautiful," she murmurs.

His hand itches towards his nose like he wants to adjust the glasses he no longer wears. "Yes. And deadly. We have to go."

"Where?"

"Back. Before. To change this."

She needs to know. "Will Peter be there?"

"Yes."

He touches her shoulder, and they fall out of time.

…

Fighting Peter is about the least productive thing he could do. They're both immortal, invulnerable, and they hate each other enough to keep fighting anyway. The key difference is that this Peter has grown war weary.

"When you gonna stop fighting this endless battle, Peter?"

"I don't know what you mean."

Sylar laughs at the lie. "Every time I see you you're trying to save the world. What's the point? It goes to hell in every future I've ever heard of."

"And you're usually the cause."

Sylar shrugs. "True."

They fight. At some point, he knocks Peter out, and he escapes.

One thought ticks through his brain.

_If he cannot have Claire, then he will have nothing._

…

Six years have passed since she has last seen Peter. In those six years, she'd lost her father, become a paid murderer, and ultimately given up her virginity to a monster.

Yet, seeing Peter unconscious among the destruction of Maya Herrera's little house in Costa Verde, as though he were asleep, her love for him is still her greatest trespass, her purest intention.

Hiro shakes him awake. "Peter," he murmurs. "Peter, you need to wake up."

And just like magic, the blackened skin of his torso knits back together and he blinks his eyes open.

"Hiro?"

His voice sends nervous shivers down her spine.

"Yes. I've brought Claire."

Claire kneels so she is next to her uncle. She waves meekly. "Hi, Peter."

They help him sit up and he explains what has happened. Claire feels bad that it has taken her this long to notice Elle's pale arm poking out from the rubble.

"I don't know where he's gone," Peter finishes. "But we have to find him." He flicks his eyes over to Claire. "And keep her safe from him."

"I know," Hiro tells them, his voice quiet. "He's gone to find Maxwell Cates, possessor of localized exponential gravity increase."

Peter looks at him blankly.

"He can create black holes," Claire clarifies.

"Oh. How'd you know that?"

"Hiro's from a different future than the one whom you were working with. Except he's working with you too… I guess since you were here when the timeline split, you're the same Peter he was working with."

Peter nods. "So now we just need to find this Maxwell Cates before Sylar does."

"I already have his location," Hiro asserts.

Peter stands up and slicks his hair back. "Good. Let's go." He places his hand on Hiro's shoulder.

"Wait, wait, wait." Claire pushes herself between the two men. "What are you gonna do, kill this Maxwell guy like you wanted Elle to kill Maya? What does that accomplish? If it's not Maxwell's power, it'll be some other power of mass destruction and some other future we have to avert."

"Claire, you don't understand."

"No, I do." She holds his gaze until he looks away.

"We'll talk about this later, Claire. For now, let's just neutralize the threat."

She lets it go.

Hiro takes them to a flat in Bristol, England. Through a window, Claire can see the man who must be Maxwell Cates pouring tea. He's a very old, sweet looking man with horn-rimmed glasses.

She cannot bear the thought of killing him.

Claire turns toward Peter, ready to plead for this man's life.

But something has Peter and Hiro fixated on a corner of the room.

Claire turns back, and realizes Sylar is standing behind poor Maxwell.

The three of them burst into the room together.

Hiro grabs Cates (_and Claire prays he is just teleporting the man with horn-rimmed glasses to safety_) and Peter enters into a stalemate tango with Sylar.

Sylar uses his telekinesis to break the tea set and attempts to smash the shards into Peter's kill spot.

Fighting Sylar is futile. No matter what anyone does, he will escape and try again, until they're all dead.

Peter won't be able to dodge forever. Eventually, Sylar will kill him, and he won't ever get up again to save the world.

Claire suspects that maybe, just this one time, she could save the world so Peter wouldn't have to.

Purpose quickens in her blood.

"Sylar," she calls. "Stop. Stop fighting him, and I'll go with you."

Surprisingly, he _does_ stop, though not before sending a spiteful shard into Peter's nape.

He holds up his hands. "I stopped." He steps toward her. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"You weren't supposed to. I just realized that that didn't do anyone any good."

He tilts his head, squinting his eyes. "Something seems different about you. Almost like…"

She cuts in. "I'll go with you. Willingly. I won't try to kill myself, and I won't run away."

"What's the catch?"

"Stop doing stupid things that make the world end." She worries her lip. "And let me say goodbye."

"No '_stop killing_'?"

She shrugs. "I don't want to call the kettle black. But I'll do what I can."

He reaches toward her. "What's with the attitude change?"

She shrugs him off without answering and kneels next to Peter. She eases the shard from his neck and waits for him to awaken.

He blinks his eyes open as she tries to memorize his face (_this might be the last time she sees it_).

"Claire?"

"Yes."

"Did Sylar escape?"

"No." She pushes the disheveled hair from his face. "I figured it out, Peter. How to save the world. How to stop Sylar for good. I figured it out." She gulps. "I have to go with him."

He snatches her hand. "Claire, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to let you do that."

Sylar calls from the doorway he's meandered to, "You can't exactly stop me."

"Shut up, Sylar." She returns her attention to Peter. "Peter, for all these years, I lived with nothing but my desire for revenge, and when I finally got it—"

"Claire, you don't have to say this."

"No, I need to. When I finally got it, I felt like I had nothing left to live for. But this—this gives me a _mission_. This gives me a reason to live—_a good reason!_ If I can keep Sylar from destroying the whole world, then maybe that will be enough." She squeezes his hand. "Peter, I can save the world. So why not?"

"You're right." He lets go of her hand and shuts his eyes. "Go. Before I change my mind."

She kisses him on the brow one last time before she stands up and faces Sylar.

She tells him, "I'm ready to try something different with you."

* * *

_A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed during the hiatus. Your comments and support kept this story alive. _

_As a sidenote, I'm planning on writing an epilogue to go along with this piece to wrap it up. _


	6. Epilogue

**And All the Stars Fell Down**

by adlyb

Disclaimer: I own nothing, except these words.

_A/N: Final installment_

* * *

What is it makes a man?

Sylar still asks himself this question years later.

They've been living in Chicago for about eighteen months. A little surprisingly, Claire's plan to use herself as a deterrent against his more violent tendencies have been successful. Since he last saw Peter Petrelli three years ago, he's learned to focus his energy (_and the ever present hunger_) on Claire instead of power acquisition. Perhaps there have been a few relapses into old habits (_he never expected to quit them anyway_) but her influence has had its effect.

On this particular morning, they laze in bed for longer than usual. It's cold in Chicago, and Claire clings to him for warmth.

He ghosts his mouth over her collarbone, nipping on the interior process harder than he would for a normal girl.

Claire moans a little, but otherwise lies still. She is often like this: compliant but not necessarily complicit.

Sylar grabs her around her hips and drags her under him so he can increase the friction when he grinds against her. He's just setting his rhythm, the one he knows Claire will like best this particular morning, when she finally shows a little more initiative and clasps his biceps.

She drags her nails down his arms in slow synchronization with the tide of his hips. Her attention leaves deep cuts, like it often does.

"Too much," she mutters. She leans up and licks along side of his neck, tastes his sweat as she arches against him. "Not enough."

She shoves him, and he lets himself get shoved (_partially because the punch she lands to his sternum has winded him, partially because he wants to see what she wants_). He waits.

Claire pushes him back on the bed and straddles him, so all the power goes to her.

Sylar doesn't mind; he's long since given up his freedom just to keep her with him.

His girl is not the most gentle lover, but she is thorough, and he did teach her everything instinct had not ingrained in her.

She rocks against his cock, twisting his nipples too hard and keeping her eyes locked on his (_he would be lying if he said he didn't understand her meaning_).

Finally, she sighs and lowers herself atop him so that he is fully inside of her. It never takes too long to get her off once she has taken dominance over him.

Afterwards, when he has pulled her down to his level and spent himself inside of her warm, golden body, he strokes her hair. Again he wonders, what is it makes a man? Has it been Claire's influence that has been enough to turn the monster into a man?

Claire raises herself up on her elbows to look at him.

He doesn't know what she's looking for, so he asks instead, "Do you regret the deal we made?"

There've been so many deals over the years (_to keep him from killing someone, to decide where to eat tonight, or which channel to watch_) that it takes her a moment to figure out what he's talking about.

She stares at a spot over his right shoulder before slowly responding, "No, I don't regret staying with you."

He won't ask why, won't ask her if he's made her happy since she returned to him.

All he knows is that since that day, something infinitesimally broken in her has been fixed.

Sylar, for once, does not have an easy answer for how Claire Bennet repaired her soul. He suspects it had something to do with all of the _save the world _shit going around at the time (_and in his most optimistic moments, he thinks it has to do with him_), but he doubts he'll ever be sure.

Today, though, it is enough to see Claire Bennet offer him a little smile and to think that perhaps he's had a hand in it after all.

* * *

_A/N: Thanks for reading! Any comments/creative criticisms, please let me know. _


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